


Astigmatised

by ChocolatePecan



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Can't keep a good sunshine boy down, Fluff, Gen, Gladio is not a nerd, Ignis is BAMF at spectacle repair, Noct earns the platinum best friend badge, Prompto fails basic contact lens hygiene, bro solidarity, mild self-esteem issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-19
Updated: 2018-02-19
Packaged: 2019-03-21 01:20:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13730088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChocolatePecan/pseuds/ChocolatePecan
Summary: Prompto's spare glasses are just as awful as he remembers. He hadn’t wanted to spend a lot of money on them since he never planned on wearing glasses again once he got used to contacts. That lack of willing shows.They’re black and huge and square: heavy plastic frames that help to hide the severity of his prescription. One of the side screws is too loose and the arm flaps shut as he tries to unfold it, and for glasses he didn’t remember ever wearing they feel suspiciously crooked on his face.





	Astigmatised

**Author's Note:**

> This one's for the fabulous anon who posted this request on the kink meme:
> 
> 'I hope I'm not the only one who thinks that Prompto is incredibly cute with glasses because I'd LOVE to read something about it. So, this is my prompt:
> 
> Prompto stops wearing glasses because he thinks he doesn't look good with them. For some reason he can't wear contatct lenses and his eyesight gets worse. When Noctis and the bros find out what is going on they try to convince Prompto to start wearing glasses again.'
> 
> I hope this works for you, lovely :)
> 
> As always, all my thanks and love to kay_cricketed, who is actually making an appointment to see the optician after reading this fic! Go if you're due, guys, your resident ex-optician's assistant recommends a check-up at least every two years.

This is absolutely the last time he falls asleep with his contact lenses in. The last time. The absolute, last final time, because now there’s something wrong with the right lens and he can’t get it out. Prompto feels like an idiot kneeling behind the tent in the dark and squirting saline directly into his eye, but the damned lens is so stuck it’s like it’s melted into place.

“Don’t panic, Prompto,” he tells himself as he tries to pinch the offender off his eyeball for the god-I’ve-lost-count time. “Just don’t panic. It’s probably torn, or you’ve got a crumb under it again, or you might have got water in it from getting an unexpected bath in the Wennath this afternoon, oh gods, don’t let it be water.”

It’s become a long-running joke. They camp at a haven, he falls asleep in a folding chair, and the guys leave him outside half the night. He gets his own back by nudging them all awake with his boots to make space when he finally comes to bed.

But his lenses aren’t designed to be slept in and he’s been wearing them a lot longer than thirty days. A _lot_ longer.

“Ffffffff.” He feels the vacuum of the lens start to give under coersion, but in his haste he lets go too quickly.

Why is it less painful to take a voretooth bite to the arm than it is to take out a damaged contact lens?

He’s dying to rub his eye, but can’t until the lens is out. His shoulders are tight as piano strings as he tries, then tries again. Finally – with a blessed _schpuck_ – the contact lens pinches out. His grunt of relief is louder than he expected.

Rubbing his right eye, he inspects the flawed lens in the light of his torch.

“Crap.” The rim is torn neatly by a millimetre or two.

He doesn’t have any spares. Somehow he’s going to have to manage without until he can find an excuse to go to an optician.

“Haaaaa. Yeah, Prompto, try shooting a target with any accuracy now. Goddammit.”

 

When Ignis’ alarm goes off to signify up-and-at-em time, Prompto stretches even before he opens his eyes. One hand goes in the air – the other straight into Gladio’s ribs.

“Mind what you’re putting where,” Gladio grumbles.

Prompto pokes a little harder. “I thought that was too squashy to be the tent.”

“Who’re you calling squashy?” Gladio pushes his hand aside and moves to sit up.

When Prompto does open his eyes, the ceiling of the tent looks just as blurry as it usually does first thing, but this morning the green is backlit with gorgeous sunshine. That’s something to be happy about. It’ll be a good photo day, and from the feel of things the plains will carry a nice breeze.

As Gladio coaxes Noct into the world of the living, Ignis unzips the tent and steps out into the sunshine to prepare breakfast. Prompto does what he always does: shifts to the corner of the tent to put his contact lenses in.

It’s only after unscrewing the lid for the left eye that he remembers he doesn’t have a lens for the right. Not only that, but his right eye seems to have puffed up overnight. It feels like there’s a rock in it, and it stings when he blinks.

He hopes he didn’t scratch the cornea. That would be annoying, painful, and mean no contact lenses for at least a few days, maybe as long as a week or two. He sags and gazes up fuzzily into the corner of the tent. “Give me a break,” he mouthes to the unsympathetic corner. “Seriously. My life.”

“You getting in some extra prayer over there on your knees?” Gladio asks Prompto. “Never knew you to be religious.” He nudges Noct out of the tent so he can make sure he stays awake.

“Oh yeah,” Prompto says over his shoulder. “I am super devout. Having to pray for your life every day will do that to a man.”

“If you studied strategy a little more you might not have to rely so heavily on prayer,” Ignis calls, pouring oil into a frying pan.

“What does he need to study strategy for when we’ve got you?” Noct rubs his eyes and melts into a fold-up chair.

Breakfast is a very pleasant journey to Croque Madame-land with eggs just the way Prompto likes them, and at least he doesn’t need to see clearly to be able to eat. If anything it makes food more flavoursome. One contact lens will do for the essentials, until he can figure out how to raise the subject of going to Lestallum.

That isn’t in today’s plans, though. When Ignis was idling through their outstanding quests the night before, he’d suggested the job of collecting fireflies for Sania. Noct had shrugged and agreed without looking up from King’s Knight, so they were likely to be hanging out around the Vesperpool and Myrlwood – miles away from where Prompto needs to be to get contact lenses.

He’s halfway through a mouthful of hot egg when Noct elbows him and asks, “What did you do to your eye?”

Prompto chews quickly, trying to make sure the egg doesn’t burn the roof of his mouth. “Muffthn.” He swallows. “Maybe one of you guys poked me in my sleep. Or I poked myself. Done that before.”

He can feel the right eye becoming increasingly swollen. It occurs to him that he probably should have rinsed it again before going to bed, but it’s too late to do anything about it now. He knows rubbing the eye will make it worse, but he can’t help himself. His knuckles go up to it as though drawn on a pulley.

“Perhaps you could give Prompto a potion, Noct? It should cure the swelling and any underlying injury,” Ignis says as he puts a hand out for their empty breakfast plates.

That’s a hell of an idea, and Prompto feels the relief of it to his boots. A healthy eye means he’ll unlock the contact lens achievement badge sooner than he’d thought. He turns towards the tent for a mini fist pump.

Noct hands him a potion from the stores like it’s no big deal.

“Thanks, man,” Prompto says as he takes it, though cringes inside at how overly grateful he sounds.

Noct raises an eyebrow. “Sure, because you’ve never had one before.” He scratches the back of his head as he wanders to the edge of the haven. “If you really want to thank me you can be my training buddy before we head out.”

 

The Regalia hums over the asphalt. There is something uniquely satisfying to the smooth way she moves, and to how Prompto senses her gear changes in his belly as they pass by the Burbost Souvenir Emporium and hit the open road. The roof’s down, the sun is high in her bright blue sky, and today is a beautiful day.

Now, if only the map wasn’t so damned inscrutable with only one working eye. And if only he hadn’t made such an idiot of himself training with Noct.

Prompto knows he can’t really hurt Noct with his crystal-powered weapons. Bullets dissipate before they hit him, but that doesn’t mean his instinctive reaction isn’t to try and aim his gun somewhere else when his buddy enters his sights.

Noct doesn’t have any compunction about going at him full-tilt when they’re training, though. All that highly proficient princely awesomeness bearing down on him is bad enough when he can see it coming. This morning it was all he could do to squeeze one eye shut, take every blow, and miss every shot.

“Are you going easy on me?” Noct had asked while tossing him a hi-potion.

Prompto had broken the bottle while crouched on one knee, struggling for breath. “Nah. Just got the sun in my eyes,” he’d said. “If I was going easy on you, dude, I’d probably need phoenix down. And we know what Iggy would say about that.”

Iggy would say it was expensive. Just now though, as they drove the Wennath flyover, he’d said something else.

“Hm?” Prompto turns to him. “Didn’t catch that.”

“Is it the next left?” Ignis’ tone is set to Urgent and Time Limited Demand.

It makes Prompto flap.

“Um, lemme see here…” He scrutinises the map. The potion worked a treat on his sore eye, but all the potions in the world won’t fix his lens prescription. He can see the map fairly well with his right eye closed, but that’s giving him a headache in the glare of the sun. He shelters his eyes, but it doesn’t stop his head throbbing. Bringing the map closer to his contactless eye might give him more clarity, so he does so, squinting hard.

Gladio snatches the map from Prompto’s hands. After a moment, he says, “Yeah, Iggy. This left.”

Prompto jumps to his knees on the seat and snatches for the map, but Gladio keeps it out of his way. “I was just—”

“Prompto, have you lost a contact lens?” Ignis asks, without taking his eyes off the road as he turns left. His pinpoint-accurate assessment leaves Prompto with his mouth hung open mid-complaint.

“How?” Prompto knuckles his forehead. “How do you even _know_ that when you’re watching the road?!”

“It doesn’t take a genius to notice you squinting.” Ignis still doesn’t take his eyes from the road. “And usually you’re a much more attentive navigator than you’ve been this morning. You couldn’t hold your own against Noct in training, and your eyesight is so poor that you can’t focus your eyes without corrective lenses in both of them.”

Prompto flops back down into his seat with an _unf_. “You mean I look boss-eyed?”

“I didn’t put it quite like that,” Ignis says.

“You just keep telling it how it is, Iggy.” Prompto bumps his fist against his chest and then twists it away, flicking it open: _heart asplode_.

“Oh, that’s right.” Noct’s face appears on his left. “I forgot you used to wear glasses.”

“Yeah, I wish I could forget.” Prompto’s tempted to raise his knees for extra protection from this conversation, but he daren’t put his boots on the Regalia’s seats.

“For the record, I didn’t notice you squinting.” Noct shrugs.

Prompto’s not hugely surprised by this, nor by the fact that his best friend never seems to have noticed him massaging his cheeks to get the tears going when they’ve got empty water flasks, or when the days are particularly dry, or they’re travelling long distances with the top down. Nor is he likely to have noticed lenses going in or coming out, since he’s usually in a stupor during those times.

“Thanks, buddy,” he says anyway, and extends his fist for a bump.

“We’ve been on the road for some time, and we haven’t had cause to visit an optician,” Ignis says. “Assuming you’re wearing monthly disposables and left Insomnia with spare pairs, you must be coming to the end of your supply.”

“I had one spare pair, and I wore them for three months.” It sounds worse when Prompto says it out loud. It was okay in his head, just something he could pass off as deal-with-this-later kind of thing. He knows better than to over-wear contacts for that long, and he could have mentioned before that he needed some, but between frog and dog-tag collecting it hadn’t seemed like there was a good time to mention it.

_Uh, hi, your friendly neighbourhood gunner just needs to stop off and pick up some contact lenses so he can maintain his flawless shot groupings and continue to actually hit the broad side of a Behemoth._

Ignis is grave. “Given your unhygienic contact lens behaviour, you’re very fortunate you can still see at all. I assume you brought a pair of glasses just in case?”

Prompto recalls his spares, tucked at the very bottom of his bag in a battered old spectacle case. He hasn’t looked at them for a while, and they’re at least three prescriptions out of date. He jams his boots into the footwell. “Yeah. I brought em.”

“Then I suggest you wear them. We haven’t come across any beasts or agents of the Empire yet today, but who knows how long that will last? A gun specialist is of little use if he can’t see to fire his weapon.”

 

They stop for gas in Old Lestallum and, for once, giving in to the age-old call to eat when he’s feeling down, Prompto convinces them to stay for brunch.

The original Crow’s Nest is surprisingly full, given their proximity to the main town. The weather is still gorgeous though, and there are a few children in. Perhaps the schools are on vacation. There’s a pleasant hub-bub to the tired-looking diner that cheers Prompto, even as he gazes at the glasses case on the table in front of him. Usually happy to take a seat at the counter, he’d asked for a booth this time.

He’s already popped out the left contact lens and trashed it, so the world around him is mostly just coloured blurs. He knows Noct is beside him from the way he gestures with his arms as he talks, though his facial expressions are almost lost to the fuzz. He knows Ignis is sitting opposite because of the distorted line of his shoulders and the ash blonde hair, and Gladio is obvious – a bulk with a shapeless black tattoo sitting in the remaining aisle seat.

“They can’t be that bad,” Noct says. He sucks something carbonated through a straw.

“Oh, they’re bad,” Prompto says. “Just promise me you won’t laugh.” He rolls his shoulders – right, then left, like he’s warming up for a bout of wrestling – before opening the case.

They’re just as awful as he remembers. He hadn’t wanted to spend a lot of money on them since he never planned on wearing glasses again once he got used to contacts. That lack of willing shows.

They’re black and huge and _square_ : heavy plastic frames that help to hide the severity of his prescription. One of the side screws is too loose and the arm flaps shut as he tries to unfold it, and for glasses he didn’t remember ever wearing they feel suspiciously crooked on his face.

As a kid he put his glasses through hell: standing on them after a shower, sitting on them by mistake while he was getting dressed, losing them somewhere in the bottom of his gym bag at school… He hadn’t done any of that to these and yet still they looked like he had.

Gladio tries hides his amusement by rubbing his chin and looking at the menu board above the service counter.

Noct doesn’t try to hide his amusement at all. He laughs out loud, and Prompto feels the eyes of everybody in the diner on him all at once. He might even be blushing.

“Wow,” says Noct. “Those are not flattering at all.” He snorts into his hand. “I don’t know which one of you I should call Specs now.”

Gladio points at Ignis first and says, “Specs,” then at Prompto and says, “Four-eyes.”

Ignis pushes up his own glasses. It’s as though Prompto’s are such an embarrassment that he has to reassure himself that his own are snazzy as hell. Prompto looks at those expensive, carefully chosen frames and their teeny weeny prescription that isn’t even technically needed, and takes his own off again.

“Nope,” he says, folding them back into the case. The world smudges.

Gladio clicks his tongue. “Just put em on. You can’t wander around blind all day.” He gets up to chat to the server, and Prompto hears something about hunts.

The last thing he needs right now is a hunt where something might want to kill him, and that’s just about every hunt he’s ever been on. Currently, the chances of him hitting an imperial airship with a bazooka are hovering somewhere around 0.1 percent.

Ignis gets up in silence. Prompto watches his back blur into the distance until he hears the bell above the door, and feels the draught caused by it closing. He continues to watch through the window as the indistinct shape of Ignis pops the trunk of the Regalia and delves around inside.

Prompto’s still squinting through the glass when he hears Noct open the spectacle case. Turning quickly, he watches as Noct unfolds the glasses, tentatively slides them onto his nose with both hands, then yanks them straight off again. Blinking hard, Noct pinches his eyes with finger and thumb.

“You can see through these?”

“Not as well as I see through contacts.” That was true: contacts increased the accuracy of his vision, and therefore the accuracy of his gun hand.

Noct turns the glasses in his hands, examining the frame front carefully. “They’re not… so bad?”

“Dude!” Prompto gestures wildly towards the door. “They’re so bad Ignis has left the party!”

It’s only a minute or so before Ignis returns. As he sits, he places something small and grey and soft-sounding on the table in front of him.

“You’ll have to put them back on, Prompto.” There’s the sound of a zip being pulled, and the grey thing splits in two to reveal several hazy lines of silver organised by decreasing size.

Prompto pushes the glasses on with a grudging noise, only to find Ignis scrutinising his face. This is new, and he freezes until Ignis looks back down at the delicate slate-grey case. He makes a few selections from it. As he pulls them out one by one, Prompto realises that the previously hazy silver lines are actually tiny screwdrivers. They look like the kind of tools used by a miniaturist or watchmaker.

“Huh,” Prompto says, fascinated. He’s about to ask where he’d been hiding those when Ignis turns both palms upwards and jerks his index and middle fingers inwards: _give them to me._ Prompto hands his glasses over without a pause, and, wanting to see more of what Ignis is doing, he rests his chin on his folded arms and squints one eye shut.

Ignis finds the right screwdriver amongst the ones he’s already selected, and makes quick work of the loose arm. He tightens the other for good measure. Tests the hinges aren’t too tight. Reverses the glasses and puts them on the table with the bridge down and taps the temple end of one arm. The glasses tip, just like a table that has one leg shorter than all the others.

It’s fascinating to watch him work. It’s actually like being at a spectacle fitting, only Prompto hasn’t waited around for the last few of those. Usually he just pays, grabs the glasses, and heads out, before the dispensing assistant has the chance to see them on him.

Ignis slides them back onto Prompto’s face, then inspects, then takes them off. Bends the frame at the hinge ever so slightly on the left hand side. Puts them on his face again. Checks the fitting behind his ears.

Prompto really hopes he’s cleaned back there sometime between now and last week.

Ignis takes the glasses off again. Easing up to his toes, he pulls a square of fabric from his pocket and uses his thumb and forefinger to sweep it over the lenses.

Prompto screws up his face. “I hope that’s not your hanky, dude.”

“Use that kind of weave and you risk scratching the lenses,” Ignis says. “It’s a microfibre cloth.”

He holds the glasses up to the light, and Prompto knows he’ll only get them back when they’re designated Ignis-clean.

They seem to pass the assessment, as Ignis offers them to him. “That’s the best I can do without a heat gun. The temples are too long. You’ll probably find they slip forward a bit.”

Once they’re on, Prompto blinks. Aside of the obvious improvement caused by having clean lenses, the accuracy of his vision seems to have improved. The glasses are more comfortable on his face, and while he’s not any happier about having to wear them they do seem a little less obtrusive. He nudges them up by the bridge. “Thanks, Iggy!”

“Perhaps we should make a stop at Lestallum.” Ignis folds his tools back into their case. “It’s only a small detour and there may be an optician there.”

 

After their satisfying meal of Kenny’s Special Salmon, and as Ignis settles the bill at the counter, Noct elbows Prompto in the ribs. “Justice Monsters Five?”

That’s a hard one to say no to, so Prompto doesn’t. He does check the clock over the server’s head before he agrees, though. No way he wants to miss the optician.

They set both game machines to versus player link-up, and Prompto leads the countdown to put a gil in each coin slot.

He has to keep taking his finger off the fire button to push his glasses up. Ignis handles his glasses like precision instruments, but Prompto’s way too out of practice for that. He keeps hitting the lens instead of using the bridge or the end pieces, so his Ignis-clean specs are now Prompto-grubby.

He’s busy unleashing his orb’s Hero Tech on Ifrit when Noct says, “So what’s the problem with glasses, anyway?” His machine makes the chocobo _kweh_ sound, signifying a treasure chest win. “I kinda like em. You look like the nerd you are.”

“Hah. Nothing, I guess.” Prompto slams the button to charge his orb. “Except that they get knocked off, broken, scratched, fall down—” he pushes them back up, losing his orb’s charge as he does “—make your ears sore, put a rim around the world, and make you fail at JusMon.”

“That’s very specific.” Noct’s machine rings the boss warning.

“Yeah. I very specifically don’t like glasses.” Prompto slices his orb, sending it straight into Ifrit’s face. “Boom!”

“You never tease Specs about his.”

“You trying to make a hypocrite of me, bro? Anyway, his actually look good, like they’re part of his face.”              

“Uh. Okay?”

“You know what I mean. He’d look totally wrong without them."

Noct’s machine plays the ‘rank up’ victory fanfare, and he gives that deep laugh that Prompto recognises as _come at me, bro_.

“Goddamn,” Prompto hisses through his teeth in response, and rapid fires simple shots at Ifrit like he’s personally responsible for him coming second and having to wear these wonky abominations to good taste.

Noct’s machine goes back to playing heavy guitar battle music. “If they help you see, what’s the problem?”

“If they weren’t a couple of years out of date, they actually might.” Prompto’s machine finally gives him a chance at Justice Slots. He gets three chests in a row and it puts the smile back on his face. “Yehah! Chests gets.”

“I don’t remember you wearing glasses in high school.” Noct’s button to switch orbs is particularly springy-sounding. “When did you switch to contacts?”

“Swapped these suckers for lenses as soon as I was old enough. Probably the summer before high school.”

In reality he’d pestered his mom for weeks to let him get them early – at least a year before that summer. He’d needed her signature on a disclaimer, because his regular optician wouldn’t dispense to minors without explicit permission.

By then he’d already lost twenty-five pounds and was starting to like the guy he saw in the photographs he took of himself once a week. He had them all lined up in a series, starting from photo one, on the inside of his wardrobe doors. They drove him forward and kept him on track when he wavered in those early days. It never stopped being important to acknowledge what he’d achieved.

He’d heard all the names as a kid. Specs. Four-eyes. Googly. Goggle-boy. Most of the time they’d been used by extended family members, or even his dad, but occasionally they’d come from somebody in class who didn’t know better. He’d learned to ignore them and refocus his attention on his camera. It’d made for a nice barrier between him and the world.

It had taken him six tries to fit a lens in the right eye, seven in the left. Blinking through tears of discomfort, he’d felt anxious as he took the hand mirror from the dispensing assistant. He couldn’t remember ever seeing himself without glasses. Squinting slightly as his eyes adjusted to containing actual plastic discs, he could see for the first time that his kiddish potato-face had gone. His cheekbones were shaping up, giving him angular cheeks closer to those of an adult.

It was the moment he realised he’d finally left that overweight, socially awkward, unconfident him behind.

Prompto doesn’t take his eyes off the game as his orb picks up a curative. “Glasses remind me of some kid I used to know. That’s all.”

“This kid have a name?” Noct’s machine tinks and clanks.

“Yeaaah. Probably.”

Prompto’s just about to embark on the next level when Noct moves to his side and leans on his machine. Prompto keeps his eyes on the board but his rhythm on the fire button slows.

 “Look,” Noct says, and taps the play board with his palm. “All I care is that you can fire a gun, and that you don’t trip on a sweet potato plant and crack your skull open. So what if your glasses are fugly? Get new ones.”

“Seriously?” Prompto lets his orb slowly slide to a stop on the screen.

“Yeah. Expenses. Talk to Specs.” Noct collects his reward from the bay of his machine. “You’re here to watch my back, right?”

“You know it.”

“Well, then. Seeing clearly will help a lot with that.” Noct heads for the door. “Come on. We’re going.”

               

Lestallum seems even hotter than usual. It must be gearing up for a storm. Hot ears and hot noses make sweat, so Prompto finds himself pushing up his glasses more than ever. Walking with his face down, his shoulders scrunched up to his ears, and his hands in his pockets isn’t keeping his glasses on his face, either.

He keeps his gaze on the stone paving until Gladio claps him straight between the shoulder blades.

“Keep your head up,” he says. “Staring at your feet will make you a target and I don’t want to have to use weapons within city limits.”

Prompto looks at him reprovingly, fingertips teasing out the pain from the stinging patch on his back.

After a few questions of the locals – helpful as ever – the group weaves its way past roasting meat skewers and the smell of coffee and sweetmeats towards a shadowed back street.

A small, faded sign saying ‘R. Esthar – Optician’ hangs over an unobtrusive door coated in brittle flakes of blue paint. There is no shop window, not even a porthole in the door.

“Would have taken us some time to find this on our own.” Ignis pushes the door partway. Somewhere inside a bell rings, and Ignis pushes the door fully open.

Behind the tiny reception area, where there sits an elderly lady with a twinkle in her eye, the optician’s office is deceptively long. All along one wall are racks and racks of spectacle frames, of all shapes, sizes and colours. They’re flanked by displays of contact lens solutions, fancy cases, screwdriver kits like the one Ignis owns, and long chains to hang your glasses around your neck. There’s even an elastic strap you can use to keep them on for sports.

As he browses, Prompto hears Ignis greet the receptionist. He also says Prompto’s full name and the word ‘appointment’.

“I have an appointment?” Prompto’s already got a box of contact lens solutions in his hands.

“I thought it best to avoid chance,” Ignis says. “Given the condition of the Crown City, you won’t be able to get a copy of your prescription from there. You’ll doubtless need a sight test if you’re going to get contact lenses.”

Prompto whispers to Noct, “I love how organised I don’t have to be when Iggy’s around.”

Noct grins at him and winks, a pair of pink and purple ladies’ spectacle frames in his hands.

 

Prompto takes off his gloves in the presence of the optician, because that seems like the polite thing to do. Grey-haired and petite, she’s nice, and reassuring, and while he’s never been nervous of visiting the optician before it feels like there’s a lot riding on this appointment. She takes a full history, and while she conducts the sight test the old fashioned way, with the weird lens carrier that she fits to his face and slots lenses in and out of, Prompto never doubts her skill or experience.

He can only read the very bottom line of the eye test chart accurately with contact lenses in, but there’s nothing new about that. Still, she gets his glasses presciption closer to it than his optician ever did in the Crown City. An accuracy of five letters out of six isn’t bad.

She examines his right eye with particular care after he tells her about the tear in the contact lens. She puts in orange eye drops that sting so much they make his legs dance, so she can examine the surface of the eye under ultraviolet light.

After getting closer than anyone but your lover should be, she eventually gives the eye a clean bill of health. She also gives him the expected lecture on contact lens care that he’s sure Ignis is going to give him again if he can ever get his hands on a pair.

 

When Prompto emerges from the optician’s office, wiping orange tears from underneath his glasses, the first thing he sees is Noct’s look of alarm. He checks behind him to see if he’s missed something, then realises his own actions have triggered it. He’s touched, but quickly raises both palms. “All good! Nothing to worry about here.”

The optician gives a quick update to the dispensing assistant-stroke-receptionist, then turns to Prompto.

“I’ll have to check to see whether we have your contact lens prescription in stock.”

She disappears into a back room before Prompto can ask, _wait, there was even a chance you might not?_ His horror must be obvious, because Ignis calls him to his side. He’s standing in front of a rack of expensive-looking frames Prompto would normally have given a pass to.

Ignis takes a pair off the rack and holds them out to him, temples first. “The problem may not be glasses per se. Rather, the pair you have are too overbearing for your features. They’re very dark, and too wide, which is partly why nothing will make them fit properly.” He pauses. “Did you take the advice of the dispensing optician when you bought them?”

Prompto takes the frames from Ignis and examines them. “Advice is a nebulous term, Iggy.”

Ignis folds his arms as he says, “It really isn’t.”

The frames feel weightless in his hands: pale gold eye wires with light brown tortoiseshell arms. Without his prescription in them it’s hard to tell what the frames look like on, so Prompto picks up the handheld mirror. One side of it is highly magnified, so he gets up close and personal with his tearducts in a way he didn’t intend, but at least he can imagine what the frames would look like if he could see clearly.

He takes them off and hands them back to Ignis. “Too round.” He leaves his own glasses on the counter as Ignis continues to peruse.

“What about these?” Noct is standing six feet away, so all Prompto can tell is that he’s donned a pair of frames. It’s not until he shuts one eye and leans right into Noct’s face that he can see they’re the pink and purple ladies’ frames he had in his hands earlier.

“Dude.” Prompto looks at Noct flatly. “Do you need to tell me something? I promise I’ll love you no matter what.”

“Shut up.” Noct is grinning as he puts the frames down on the counter. “How bad is your sight anyway that you need to get so up close and personal?”

“His prescription is significant,” Ignis says as he snaps a pair of frames closed. “And he has a higher than average astigmatism.”

“A what?” Noct asks, a pair of light blue frames half-way to his face.

“My eyeball is the wrong shape,” Prompto says, and reaches for his glasses.

“Your cornea, actually.” Ignis examines the sprung hinge on a pair of frames.

“Huh. Didn’t know that,” Prompto says. His glasses feel heavy on his face as he pushes them up.

He can just make out Gladio standing behind Noct, trying on a pair of dark-looking frames and tousling his hair in the mirror. “These’d make great shades,” Gladio says.

Ignis offers Prompto another pair to try on. These ones have a very light rose gold frame on the top half, and a band of thin, transparent nylon beneath to keep the lenses in place. He looks at them but doesn’t take them. After a brief pause, Ignis folds them and leaves them neatly on the counter.

He doesn’t want to keep trying on glasses. He wants the optician to come back with a lifetime’s supply of contact lenses.

As though she’d heard him praying, the optician comes back into view from the rear of the office. Prompto immediately stands to attention, but he can tell by her furrowed brow and sympathetic mouth that he’s not going to like what she has to tell him.

“I’m afraid we don’t have them. Since Insomnia fell our supply lines have been interrupted.” She takes a pen from behind the counter and signs a copy of Prompto’s prescription. “You can take this to Altissia and try to get it filled there, or I can order you some from Niflheim, but they could take as long as a week.”

Prompto sags into a waiting chair. “So I have to keep wearing these. That’s just great.” He takes the glasses off and pushes his palms into his eyes.

Ignis is still casually lining up frames on the counter before him. “I understand you provide a same-day service for glasses if you have the lenses in stock,” he says. “Is that a feasible alternative?”

“I was going to suggest that, actually. We do have his prescription for glasses,” the optician says. “They can be ready in a couple of hours, and if you want I can order the contacts for collection sometime next week.”

Prompto sits bolt upright in the chair and looks between Ignis and Noct. “Can we do that? Canwecanwecanwe?”

“It’s up to Noct.” But Ignis doesn’t break from browsing the frames and lengthening his line of possibilities. He places another pair at the end of it.

“You’ve got to be able to see, so yeah.” Noct says, handing Ignis a pair of frames for his line of ‘try me’s. “There’s not really any question.”

 

They spend so long trying on frames that the optician has to give them a deadline of ‘within the next hour’. Prompto doesn’t remember anyone paying as much attention to his choice of frames before. His mom had always left work early to take him to the optician as a child, and normally he had a flat five minutes to choose before the optician’s office closed for the day. He knew his mom worked hard, and didn’t want to make her life harder than it had to be, so he’d just choose one of three pairs the dispensing optician showed him and that was that.

It’s actually really nice to have people helping him choose, and to spend so long doing it.

“Hey. How many fingers am I holding up?” Noct asks, wearing a pair of bright red oblong frames. Making sure nobody’s looking, he erects his middle finger behind his hand.

“I’m short-sighted, dude, not blind! How many fingers am _I_ holding up?” Prompto bites back, showing him both his middle fingers and giving him a shove for good measure. They tussle briefly, trying to stamp on each other’s feet.

“Perhaps you could try these, Prompto,” Ignis says loudly. Prompto leaves Noct giggling to himself and tries to wipe the smile off his own face as Ignis hands him a pair of frames. These ones are titanium coloured, narrow at the sides and sharply angled at the cheek. Prompto slips them on and examines them as well as he can in the hand mirror.

“Too severe.” He hands them back.

“Hmph. I rather liked those on you,” Ignis says, and puts them in their slot on the shelf.

“They look like your frames, dude, that’s why. Only one man can look like Ignis Scientia on this team.” Prompto puts on a pair of large cream-and-orange plastic frames, which sets Noct and Gladio to laughing.

“Those are actually worse than what you’ve been wearing,” Gladio says. He tries on a pair of silver frames that are far too narrow for his face. The arms cling to his temples like they’re keeping his brain in.

Prompto laughs so hard he has to lean on the counter to keep himself upright.

“Here,” Noct says when Prompto wipes his eyes and stands straight again. He’s been trying on anything he’s offered without looking, but by chance Prompto examines the arm before he puts them on. He recognises the pink and purple flowery pattern from the last time Noct offered them, complete with the ornate winged end pieces.

“Dude! Trying to buy a seriously studious pair of glasses here,” Prompto says, and puts them back down on the counter. For the first time, he notices that there are frames on just about every surface of the store. He turns to the receptionist, who even now is fixing frames back on the racks. “We’re making such a mess, sorry!”

“Our apologies,” Ignis says, wearing a pair of frames in the pilot style. They’re far too long for his face and sit on his cheeks like two fat, roosting blackbirds. “I’ll be happy to put them back in their places.”

“Oh, not to worry,” the receptionist says. “You’re the best fun we’ve had in here for ages. Keep it up!”

They each try on several more. With Ignis’ help, Prompto manages to shortlist three frames. They’re not quite right, because they still make him look like he’s wearing glasses and he’d prefer it if they just disappeared on his face, but they’re all frames he’d be willing to wear. Each one of them is a huge improvement on his spares.

“One more,” Ignis says, and hands him a flash of what looks like nothing at all. Squinting at them, Prompto notices the frames are the rose gold-tinted half rimless ones Ignis gave him while the optician was checking her contact lens stocks.

“Haven’t I tried these on before?” he asks.

“No, but I did offer them.” Ignis starts putting frames back onto the racks, leaving just the shortlist on the counter.

Prompto pushes the frames onto his face with both hands and looks in the mirror. They feel comfortable straight away, like they’re fitted perfectly behind the ears and on his nose. They’re a nice width. Best of all, he can barely see them on his face. He squints so hard at the mirror that his own head blocks out the light, but he can still just make out the golden edge of the top of the frame if he works hard enough at it.

“Huh,” he says. And then, “Huh.”

“That sounds positive,” says Noct as he helps Ignis put the rest of the frames back where they belong.

“What do you think, Iggy?” Prompto looks up from the mirror.

“As I suspected, they look very good on you. Very minimalist.” Ignis pushes up his own glasses.

“Let me see?” asks Noct. Prompto finds his rough location and blinks through the fake lenses at the Noct-shaped blur. Noct makes a similar ‘huh’ noise. “Actually, they’re pretty good.”

“They make you look older,” Gladio says, his arms folded.

Now that’s something he hadn’t expected. “Oh, oh! How much older?” Prompto lifts his chin, trying to show them off at all angles.

“A few years. Like you’ve grown into your forehead.” Gladio reaches forward and flicks his forehead lightly – much more lightly than he’d slapped him on the back earlier.

It’s easy to forget that Gladio’s been a martial artist all his life until you get on the wrong and right sides of him in the same day. Those arts give you muscle control Prompto can only dream of. One day, he might just catch up.

“They actually do suit you,” Noct says. “If you’re sure you don’t want these?” He holds up the purple and pink frames again.

“Dude, if those are the only frames that exist come the end of the world, I will still not want them. I will make my own contact lenses out of fish scales and spit.”

“You can try that out now if you like?”

“You mad, bro?” Prompto says. He holds the frames in his hand like he’s afraid if he puts them down he’ll never find them again – and he might not.

 

When summoned, the optician makes quick work of the measurements she needs to give the optical glazer. She gets Prompto to look at set points on her own face and he complies, hoping that he really isn’t as boss-eyed as Ignis _didn’t quite_ say he was on the drive into Old Lestallum.

“They’re good ones,” she says. “I’m glad you found something. Come back in an hour, and they should be ready for you.”

They step outside, and the blue door closes hard behind them. Prompto pushes up his horrible old glasses. It feels good to know he can throw them out by the end of the day.

As they walk back towards town, Ignis says, “Those ones are too nice to keep for spares. You should give yourself the choice to wear them.”

“I don’t know, Iggy. We’ll see when I can actually…well, see.”

 

They decide against travelling to any hunts. They don’t have anything on the docket within an hour’s drive, and the idea of missing the optician’s opening hours brings Prompto out in a cold sweat.

“I’d like to see if there are any new spices available at the market,” says Ignis as they pass the turning. “We’re running short of turmeric.”

“I want to book a room at the Leville before anyone tries to convince me otherwise,” Noct says.

“You must be talking about Gladio or Iggy, because no way you can change my mind. I am with you all the way, dude.” Prompto sniffs his armpit and fakes falling on Noct. “You can tell that optician is a true professional for not just dying on the spot.”

“You’re right. You stink.” Noct pokes him in the midriff. “Get off me before I have you arrested for regicide.” Prompto makes a show of stumbling away and clutching his chest, but has to save his glasses before they crash to the cobbles.

“Well, I guess I’m going wherever Noct’s going. But I’d like to stop by the Culless place, see if they’ve got any new accessories in. ‘Bout time I had an upgrade,” Gladio says.

“Sure. Whatever you need to keep you safe,” Noct says, and Prompto can tell he means it.

“Shall we split up, then? Noct and Gladio can secure us accommodation and new accessories, and Prompto can help me carry the groceries.”

“The last time I saw a bag of spice, it was this big,” Prompto says, clapping both palms straight together. “No way you need help with that!”

“Who knows what other delights may win my affection at the market?” Ignis says. “It would be a shame to miss out on an opportunity for lack of a bag carrier.”

 

The four of them agree to meet at the restaurant in the town square in an hour. Tagging behind Ignis, Prompto feels like everybody is staring at him in these godawful glasses. It wasn’t until he’d put them back on when he left the opticians that he sensed the profound difference his new glasses would make. He can’t wait to get them in hand.

It’s not long before he takes the glasses off and sticks them precariously in his waistcoat pocket. He recognises Ignis mostly by the shape of his shoulders and the frosty voice, and as long as he stays in his vicinity he’ll be fine.

After buying some spices and sneaking a jar of pickled peppers into his purchases, Ignis turns to find Prompto squinting over his shoulder.

“I saw that,” he says, and tuts. “Are pickled peppers an appropriate use of Crownsguard funds, Mr Scientia? I have a duty to report fraud at the highest level.”

“You didn’t see anything illicit,” Ignis says, and takes the glasses out of Prompto’s pocket, shoving them on his face. “But if you really think you should be observing my every move, it would probably best to leave these on, hm?”

               

The hour passes quickly. Ignis and Prompto are the first pair back to the restaurant, and despite Prompto’s fussing about closing times and opticians and glasses and _where is that delinquent prince and his weapon of mass destruction_ , Ignis orders them a coffee.

“If they’re not back in five minutes, we’ll go and collect your glasses without them.” Ignis sips from his cup. “You won’t be left without.”

Prompto has managed to sneak his glasses back into his pocket. His head is pounding. The sun is starting to set over the Disc at Cauthess, and he can’t tell if it’s that or stress that’s beating his brain into surrender.

“I wish I was without this headache.” He squints at his phone, but it’s too hard to text Noct with any accuracy. He puts his glasses on to check the message.

_Dude, whers are u? I nd to go get my glasses. It’ll be all on you od yiu have to put up wth me crying myweld to sleep!!_

It’s actually a better approximation than he’d thought.

 

When Noct and Gladio finally show up, Prompto shoots out of his chair. “Come on, guys! You can catch me up!”

It’s no more than a few minutes to the optician’s office, and when Prompto pushes open the door and hears the bell he feels himself breathe deeply for the first time since he and Ignis finished grocery shopping.

“Hey,” says the receptionist. “You’re just in time.”

“Sorry, sorry I’m late,” Prompto says, just as the others enter the shop behind him.

“Not late. They’re only just finished,” she says, and stands to fetch the optician.

When she comes out of the room at the back of the office, the optician is carrying a green tray. Prompto takes a deep breath.

“Are they done? Do I get to do something other than stare at the wall tonight?”

“I think you’ll be able to do whatever you want, within legal limits,” the optician says with a smile as she takes up the spectacles and cleans them with an industrial-sized microfibre cloth.

“He doesn’t usually let that stop him,” says Gladio, leaning on the counter.         

“How dare you. I’ve never broken a rule in my life,” Prompto says in false haughtiness.

“Seatbelts,” Ignis says, picking up a small spray bottle of spectacle cleaner.

“Except that one.” He grits his teeth and smiles apologetically at the optician.

“Speed limits,” Noct says.

“Once, and that was an accident.”

“Shoving the coin pusher at the arcade.” Gladio scratches at the smile blooming on his face.

“You know what, stop now.” Prompto takes off his glasses again in anticipation and so he doesn’t have to look the optician in the eye as she holds out the glasses.

He almost starts babbling at the optician as he feels the nerves start to get the better of him. Maybe he should apologise for camping almost a week straight and stinking up her office for hours, or maybe she really does care if he breaks rules, and maybe she won’t give him the glasses if he doesn’t adhere to the law, and he’s not really a rulebreaker, not _really_ really—

“There,” says the optician as she puts the glasses on his face. “How’s that?”

Prompto blinks. As his eyes adjust to the new prescription he glances around the office. The first thing he notices is that there isn’t a big, black rim around the world. In fact, he can hardly see a rim at all. There’s the normal difficulty of not being able to see outside the edges of the spectacle frame, which can only be eradicated by contact lenses – but it’s much less noticeable than usual.

“Huh,” he says, and smiles.

“Read this to me?” the optician says, handing him a test card with lots of differently-sized quotes in different types of font. She indicates a tiny one, which he reads off without thinking.

“How do they feel?” she asks, checking behind his ears as Ignis had done in the Crow’s Nest.

“Yeah, good.” He keeps his hands locked in front of him.

The optician takes them off his face, loosens the nosepieces slightly, then puts them back. “Better?”

“Yeah. It is, actually.” He wouldn’t have noticed if she hadn’t adjusted them. The optician nods to herself and turns to sign off some paperwork.

“They make you look older _and_ smarter,” Gladio says, leaning back against the wall. “Your IQ just went up two points by osmosis.”

“Very dashing. From one four-eyes to another,” says Ignis. Prompto twitches his nose and pushes the glasses up by the rim.

Picking up the hand mirror and flipping it so that his face is the normal size, Prompto looks at his reflection. He can see the glasses clearly on himself for the first time. They complement the shape of his face perfectly, and the minimalist rim means that they’re much less obtrusive on his face.

They might just be the best glasses he’s ever had.

“Happy?” asks the optician, before handing Ignis the bill.

“Yeah. They’re not bad!” Prompto grins. “I like em.”

“Go wait outside while I cough up a kidney to pay for them,” says Noct.

 

Prompto examines the Lestallum backstreet through his new rose gold-framed glasses. The golden hour sheds sunlight liberally all over town, and somewhere to his left he can hear laughter as the ladies of Exineris end the day shift and turn the town from a place of hard industry to a place of fun and relaxation. On his right he can hear the skewer seller down by the car park: _best meat this side of Lestallum! Spicy or plain, you decide!_

He bobs his head as a local restaurant cranks up the volume of their street music to lure in punters and taps his legs in time to the beat.

Today is a good day.

No, today is a _great_ day.

He hears the door to the opticians’s office open and close beside him. The key turns in the lock. When Prompto looks around to ask Noct where they’re headed for dinner, his jaw drops.

“No freaking way!” he says.

Noct is wearing a pair of overstated black glasses. They’re similar to the pair Prompto’s pleased to have seen the last of, though not as deep. Noct grins as he pushes them up by the bridge.

“What?” Noct says. “All the nerds are wearing them.”

“But you don’t have a prescription!”

“Plano lenses,” Ignis says as he heads out into the alley. “Or, lenses without a corrective refraction.”

Behind Noct, Gladio shifts his new shades up to the top of his head and follows Ignis.

“Gladio too?” Prompto can’t stop grinning.

“Didn’t want to be left out. Though I’ll leave the nerding to the nerds,” he says, and drops the sunglasses over his eyes.

Noct moves ahead of Prompto, his white shirt catching the orange of the setting sun. As he does, he ruffles Prompto’s hair. “You coming, Goggle-boy?”

“Hah! You bet!” Prompto says. He reaches for his camera, then runs to catch up. “I gotta get a shot of this!”


End file.
